(Bloomberg) -- Hong Kong raised its economic growth forecast for 2021 as the government slowly eases virus control measures and cash vouchers help to drive spending in a city hit by the pandemic and protests before that.

The city now projects gross domestic product growth of 5.5% to 6.5% this year, compared with an earlier range of 3.5% to 5.5%, the statistics department said in a release Friday.

The government also raised its year-on-year GDP figure for the second quarter to 7.6% from an advanced reading of 7.5%. On a quarter-on-quarter basis, a better reflection of growth momentum, GDP shrank 0.9%, the finalized data showed.

Hong Kong’s economy has faced an uneven recovery from two years of contraction, with retailers and tourism-related businesses particularly hard hit as borders remain shut and travel curtailed to stop the spread of more infectious variants of Covid-19.

The unbalanced recovery has exposed deepening wealth imbalances between the city’s working class and elite. Tourism, consumer and services industries are the biggest employers of many of Hong Kong’s working class.

Hong Kong’s Economy Is Finally Recovering, But Only for the Rich

The government has begun implementing a consumption voucher program to encourage local spending, distributing about HK$11 billion ($1.4 billion) to some 5.5 million registrants in the first batch of electronic handouts on Aug. 1, Financial Secretary Paul Chan said in an Aug. 1 blog post.

“We decided to launch the consumption voucher scheme with a view to benefiting most citizens and merchants, and ensuring all the resources could stay in the local economy,” Chan said.

Permanent residents and eligible immigrants aged 18 and older will receive vouchers worth HK$5,000. The program will cost an estimated HK$36 billion and provide a 0.7 percentage-point bump to this year’s GDP, according to an April government report.

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